| Ronald Radd | |
|---|---|
| Born | 22 January 1929 Ryhope, County Durham, England, UK |
| Died | 23 April 1976 (aged 47) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Years active | 1955-1976 |
Ronald Radd (born 22 January 1929 - 23 April 1976) was a British television actor.
Radd starred in some 60 different TV shows between 1955 and 1976 including The Avengers, Danger Man, and Z-Cars. He also played the role of the villain Pargiter in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) in 1969 in the sixth episode, "Just for the Record" where he grew a lengthy beard resembling Henry VIII.
Radd began as a stage actor in the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham in the early-1950s, along with the likes of Leslie Sands and Edward Mulhare. By 1954, Radd had graduated to the West End, where he was a most unlikely co-star with Kenneth Williams in two different productions in the Apollo Theatre in February 1956, The Buccaneer and The Boyfriend. Several months later, he was again with Kenneth Williams in a revival (at the Winter Garden) of Feydeau's Hotel Paradiso, but the billing went to Alec Guinness, who made a film of it years later, but not with Radd or Williams.
Radd gradually lost interest in theatre and broke into television in Ordeal by Fire in 1957 as a dastardly Frenchman, a single play costume piece involving Joan of Arc (played by Elizabeth Sellars) with Peter Wyngarde and Patrick Troughton whom he later starred in with in 1958 in the BBC production of A Tale Of Two Cities.
Radd's next few TV credits actually took place across the Atlantic; this was less unusual then than now, with many of the American networks' studios still being located in New York, where many British actors were working in the theatre. Radd made a number of appearances in the CBC production The Shari Lewis Show between 1960 and 1963, and in 1960 appeared in the production of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh directed by Sidney Lumet, who also directed him in the 1968 feature film adaptation of The Sea Gull. In 1969 he appeared in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter. Radd worked alongside actors such as a very young Robert Redford and Jason Robards. A busy year Radd also appeared in the NBC production of The Tempest playing the role of the drunkard Stefano, alongside acclaimed actors such as Richard Burton who portrayed Caliban and Maurice Evans, star of many Hallmark productions later.
In 1971 he was nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured actor.
He died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada of a brain haemorrhage in 1976 aged 47.